


i'm tired of the city (scream if you're with me)

by explicitly_iridescent



Series: counting all the losses that you can't collect [2]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24522112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explicitly_iridescent/pseuds/explicitly_iridescent
Summary: Hyunjin makes a very important call. Heejin contemplates, answers, and contemplates some more.“It’s just a few weeks,” Jiwoo tells her. “For the holidays.”Heejin nods, tries to convince herself it won’t mean anything. “Yeah, a few weeks.”(part 2 of the "counting all the losses you can't collect" series)
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu, Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin, Jo Haseul/Viian Wong | ViVi
Series: counting all the losses that you can't collect [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769152
Comments: 14
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i suggest u read the first part of this series !! :) hope u enjoy this work and let me know what u think ! :)

( _Heejin means to tell Hyunjin, she really does. The acceptance letter is heavy inside her bag, inside her heart. There is so much to say, and not enough words._

_She lingers, she waits, she lets it be.)_

“You’ve been staring at your phone for an hour,” Jiwoo points out mid-chew. She pauses and keeps chewing for a bit, and then points the chicken leg at Heejin. “Something you wanna tell me?”

Heejin breaks out of her reprieve, looks up from her phone, and blinks owlishly at Jiwoo for a bit. Jiwoo’s eyebrows furrow, but she doesn’t stop eating her fried chicken. “You good?” She asks Heejin. “You’re not touching your food either. Should I be worried?”

( _Heejin remembers telling Jiwoo first, asking her to keep it a secret._

_“There’s this girl named Hyunjin, I think I like her.”_

_“Oh,” Jiwoo says, and then smiles at her. “Okay.” She promises to keep it a secret, but Sooyoung finds out one way or another._

_Heejin can’t even be mad. She should have known Jiwoo would tell the older girl anyways._

_“You never introduced us to her,” Sooyoung comments, when they’re at Jiwoo’s house._

_Heejin shrugs. “You guys are different.”_

_Jiwoo pouts. “We’d like her, though. Cause she makes you happy. And you like her too!”_

_Heejin puffs her cheeks out. “Kay. I’ll ask her to hang with us tomorrow.”_

_Sooyoung doesn’t say anything. She isn’t one for new people, but she isn’t hostile either. She keeps her mouth shut, and furrows her face into Jiwoo’s shoulder.)_

“Do you and Sooyoung still talk?” Heejin suddenly asks out of nowhere. She’d walked around on egg shells about the whole Sooyoung-topic with Jiwoo, the way Jiwoo pretended the whole Hyunjin-thing didn’t happen either. They don’t really have the time to be sad in New York, they have enough on their plates already.

Jiwoo drops the chicken leg, and looks at Heejin with wide eyes. An awkward pause follows, and Heejin already has an apology bubbling up her throat, when Jiwoo finally replies. “Uh, sometimes, I guess? She greeted me on my birthday, and I did the same, so. I don’t know. We’re okay, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Sorry,” is all Heejin says. She doesn’t know why she asked in the first place.

Jiwoo shrugs, and tries to continue eating. “It’s okay. Don’t be worried. Soo and I are, uh, we’re dealing. You know? Like, it’s been a couple of months. It’s better now.”

“That’s good,” Heejin replies. “At least you guys are okay.” She feels a small stab of guilt. She hasn’t really talked to Sooyoung ever since Jiwoo and her broke up. It isn’t anything malicious, it was just awkward. She was here in New York with Jiwoo, and though she never meant to choose sides, she was sort of backed into Jiwoo’s corner by circumstances.

“Why are you suddenly asking, anyways?” Jiwoo raises an eyebrow at her.

Heejin’s eyes travel to her phone, and the text. The text she received an hour and a half ago that says: _hey, was wondering if we could talk?_

She feels like throwing up—her hearts thudding painfully against her ribcage, and her hands feel sweaty. She doesn’t know how to tell Jiwoo. Saying it out loud makes it a reality, and Heejin’s reality, which she’s spent so long building, spent so many days trying to put together carefully, feels like it will shatter the moment she acknowledges what she’s pushed into the back of her mind and heart.

“Nothing.” She lies. Heejin’s an actress, after all, she’s made it on Broadway. She’s good at this.

But her heart is pure, and Jiwoo’s known her for so long that it doesn’t even convince the other girl at all. “ _Sure_ ,” Jiwoo says. “You don’t have to tell me, if you’re not ready, but don’t lie, bitch.”

The _bitch_ sounds a lot like Sooyoung. Heejin meets Jiwoo’s strangely perceptive gaze, and realises there are still parts of Sooyoung in Jiwoo—the bluntness, the sometimes rare sharp gazes Jiwoo throws around, Jiwoo’s penchant for listening to hip hop music. Heejin wonders if there are still parts of Hyunjin in her that others see.

.

The text doesn’t sit in Heejin’s inbox as long as it sits heavily in her mind, and even more so in her heart. She doesn’t reply for the first two days, doesn’t know how to, doesn’t know if she still should.

It stays, it waits, it lingers.

.

( _“I think you’re gonna be famous one day,” Hyunjin tells her. They’re fifteen, in Heejin’s room, just the two of them in their own world while Sooyoung and Jiwoo pay attention to the movie they all should be watching._

_Heejin playfully rolls her eyes. “I’m_ **_not_.” ** _She shrugs. “I don’t wanna be anyways.”_

_“You’re so good at singing, and you’re so pretty though.”_

_“You’re just saying that cause you have to.”_

_Hyunjin pouts. “No, I’m not. You’re gonna be famous doing your little plays.”_

_“Little plays,” Heejin repeats with a laugh. “Cute.”_

_“Maybe I’ll be famous too, as your best friend.”_

_“Nah. You’d be famous as my number one stalker.”_

_Hyunjin blinks at her. “True.”_

_Heejin playfully slaps her. “You’re not supposed to agree!”_

_“We are_ **_watching_ ** _a movie!” Sooyoung suddenly yells out from where she and Jiwoo are snuggled up._

_“Sorry,” Heejin says in a lower voice._

_Hyunjin and her more or less shut up, cuddling into each other. The movie plays on, Heejin doesn’t really know what’s going on, but it’s about a girl and boy, who fall in love and share kisses, and it’s just a teenage romcom to be honest, but she kind of wishes Hyunjin would kiss her like that too.)_

The play’s lead actress and Heejin’s somewhat friend, Haseul, talks to her at lunch. Haseul’s an interesting case, Heejin and almost everyone knows her from Haseul’s Opera days, and why she switched to modern plays all of a sudden still gives everyone whiplash, but she’s here, and she’s also the topic of a lot of backstage gossip, because, well, she was dating the play’s director—Vivi, who had dyed purple hair, and looked like she rode motorcycles and did fiddler on the roof in high school.

Heejin doesn’t believe any of the backstage rumors though, anyone with working ears can tell why Haseul deserves to be here. Plus, she thinks the older girl is sweet. She doesn’t bat an eye at any of the vicious, jealous understudies that vie for Vivi’s approval instead, which makes her cool in Heejin’s books.

“You good?” Haseul asks her over pasta.

Heejin shrugs. “Yeah. Why, what’s up?”

“I don’t know. You were kinda off today.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. No fake-wrestling with Ryujin with the props,” Haseul teases her. “Things good?”

Heejin doesn’t know what comes over her, but suddenly, her shoulders slump, and she tells Haseul, even if Haseul doesn’t know Hyunjin, even if Haseul is not Jiwoo or Sooyoung even. Heejin is tired, and she tells Haseul the truth.

“I’m just, I don’t know. You ever feel like something’s haunting you?”

Haseul furrows her eyebrows, maybe confused. “Uh, no, not really. I didn’t know you believed in ghosts.”

“No, not _ghosts_ ,” Heejin replies. A part of her thinks: but it’s similar, in a way. Always trailing after her. Always in her nightmares, and even the good dreams. “Like, you know.”

“I don’t?”

“Ugh. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I ran away from something, and now it’s all coming back, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.”

“ _Ah_.” Haseul sips from her water bottle. “Now _that_ , I understand.”

Heejin groans, and rubs her eyes. “It sucks.”

“That it does.”

“I don’t wanna acknowledge it.”

“That, you don’t.”

“Are you gonna be helpful or not?”

Haseul laughs, and twirls her finger in a circular motion. “I’m just listening. It feels like you never really talked about this, so. Plus, I don’t know shit about your situation. How am I supposed to give you Iroh-level advice?”

“I _hate_ that you just made an Avatar reference while trying to comfort me,” Heejin replies. “Imagine if I didn’t know Avatar, that reference would totally fly over my head.”

“You’re changing the subject,” Haseul points out. “Stick to the story, Heejinnie.”

“You’re not allowed to call me that, you know. I’m still pouring my heart out.” Heejin pouts. “You’re supposed to call me that _after_ I spill my guts.”

“You’re literally taking forever to _spill your guts_ , I’m just moving things along. Continue.”

“ _Fine_ , Jesus. I used to wonder how Vivi ever snatched someone like you.” Now she gets it—Haseul isn’t all eye-smiles and encouragements, maybe she’s also fire and tenacity after all.

“She’s very lucky.”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re a bitch, Heejin, but you’re a bitch I’m concerned about. So, do tell your ghost stories.”

“It’s not a ghost—“ She starts, but then stops. “Fine. Whatever.” She takes a deep breath, and tells Haseul everything.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heejin tells her ghost stories, which don't really involve a ghost. Just Hyunjin, really.

( _It’s Hyunjin that ends up confessing, which: surprise. Heejin was convinced Hyunjin was going to keep running away from what was blatantly there and true: that they both liked each other._

_It was in junior year, during the seniors’ send-off. BBC High school was in shambles after all the parades, and celebrations, and Hyunjin had spent a good amount of time trying not to cry as Jinsol and Jungeun graduated._

_Heejin would have definitely_ **_not_ ** _picked this moment to make any sort of love confessions. They were sweaty, everyone was around, and the air smelled faintly of hairspray and body odour. It’s not the place to make any big announcements aside from goodbyes with friends, but Hyunjin is Hyunjin—strange, off beat, always a little trippy—so while they’re in the restroom, washing off some of the spray paint they’d put on their cheeks, a bunch of other girls also in the restroom with them, Hyunjin just faces her and goes, “You know I’d really like it if we became girlfriends, or something.”_

_She doesn’t even ask Heejin out on a_ **_date_ ** _. Heejin had planned to give Hyunjin a big confession—intimate, cute, maybe over the top—this? Out of her plans. Of course._

_Heejin chokes on air, and everyone in the bathroom stops talking and sort of looks at them, and she glares at Hyunjin through the mirror._

_Hyunjin doesn’t catch the look. Heejin grabs her, and says, “We’re going outside,” and then she drags the other girl outside, through the hallway filled with everyone else, and then there—they’re in some classroom that they really shouldn’t be in._

_“Excuse me?” Heejin finally manages to get out, face red, hands waving all over the place. “_ **_Excuse me_ ** _?”_

_“You’re…excused?” Hyunjin replies, confused, just blinking at her._

_“_ **_Hyunjin_ ** _,” Heejin pointedly says. “_ **_Please_ ** _tell me you didn’t just ask me out in the girl’s restroom. Please, do me this one favour.”_

_Hyunjin blinks at her, and then shrugs—which infuriates Heejin as much as it endears Hyunjin to her. “I mean, I didn’t? I think I technically confessed, though?”_

_“I can’t believe this.” Heejin face-palms, and reminds herself that strangling someone was illegal and that she still had a very bright future ahead of her. She couldn’t afford going to jail just because her best friend was a fucking idiot. “You,” she says, emphasising it by pointing at Hyunjin, “are actually impossible. I think I might hate you.”_

_“You don’t hate me,” is all Hyunjin replies, still looking confused. “I’m pretty sure you like me too. I just asked for formalities’ sake.”_

_“Formalities…You’re actually not a real person.”_

_“I am?”_

_“KIM HYUNJIN YOU COULDN’T HAVE PICKED A BETTER—more ROMANTIC—time and place? Really?”_

_“Oh.” Hyunjin shrugs. “Sorry? I can’t take it back, though, unless…like we both get amnesia…”_

_Heejin buries her face in her hands. “I hate you. You’re so annoying. I hate_ **_you_.** _”_

_That’s when Hyunjin starts chuckling. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t—“ She keeps laughing. “—ohmygod—sorry, it honestly just came out of nowhere. I wasn’t thinking.” Heejin feels Hyunjin place her hands on her own hands, pulling them away from her face. Hyunjin gently cups Heejin’s face in her own hands. She flashes her a dazzling smile, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’m sorry, really.” But her tone suggests she is anything but, as it is laced with amusement. “I couldn’t help it. You just looked_ **_so_ ** _cute with the spray paint, all tired, and jumpy because of the send-off. I couldn’t help it, really.”_

_Heejin blushes, and she really can’t talk. Not when their faces are_ **_this_ ** _close to each other._

_“I guess, when I ask you out, I’ll make it more romantic,” Hyunjin concludes, leaning in all of a sudden. Heejin’s heart thuds against her chest as she thinks about kissing Hyunjin, but then the other girl plants a kiss on Heejin’s nose instead, before pulling away and letting go off her face. “You forgive me?”_

_“Don’t you want to know my answer?” Heejin replies, finally getting her mouth to work._

_Hyunjin laughs once more. “Isn’t it a yes?”_

_Heejin raises an eyebrow. “What if it wasn’t?”_

_“Then, I’d just ask again, duh.”_

_Heejin’s in love even before she says yes.)_

.

“Huh, that’s cute,” Haseul ultimately says. “Sounds like a weird girl.”

Heejin picks at her fingers, smiling with her head down. “Yeah, she was the weirdest.”

“I’m sure that’s why you liked her,” Haseul observes. “Hope she’s not some sort of manic pixie dream girl. I’d be disappointed if she was, Heejinnie.”

Heejin rolls her eyes. “She _wasn’t_ , she was just Hyunjin.”

.

( _Just Hyunjin is basically how Heejin has come to describe everything she_ ** _can’t_** _about the other girl—like how Hyunjin will betray everyone she loves for a loaf of warm bread,_ ** _including_** _Heejin; like how Hyunjin can go from expressionlessly blinking at someone, to laughing with her mouth wide open bringing shame to Jinsol’s dinosaur laugh in Heejin’s_ ** _completely unbiased_** _opinion; like how Hyunjin easily talks with others, namely Yeji, Jisu, Ryujin, Chaeryeong, and Yuna, and how she can be completely awkward around Sooyoung and Jiwoo; like how she says ‘aeong’ instead of_ ** _actual_** _words sometimes, and how only Heejin can understand her when she does that, leaving Jinsol, Jungeun, Hyejoo, and Chaewon frustrated; like how she knows Heejin needs to be left alone when she’s upset, because being comforted makes Heejin cry more, and she doesn’t like it._

_It’s a lot—just Hyunjin things_ **_That Make Heejin Feel A Lot More Than She Really Could Ever Describe_ ** _._

_When Hyunjin_ **_actually_ ** _asks her out on a proper first date, complete with a romantic setting she’d forced their friends to help her set up [which in high school basically meant either the cafeteria, the gym, or an empty classroom, and Hyunjin had chosen the gym out of all the places]. There had been signs, and some video montage, and even a sickening amount of flowers._

_Heejin couldn’t believe this was the exact same girl that confessed to her during the senior’s send-off in the girl’s bathroom surrounded by random people._

_She’d said yes, of course. Heejin never had any plans to say no to Hyunjin.)_

.

“So, long story short, you’re completely into this girl, she’s into you, you guys obviously dated, and then?” Haseul asks, taking a bite off her food.

Heejin sighs. “Well, there was a lot more to it than that, you know.”

Haseul snorts. “Of _course_ there was. There always is, you know, like so much more to those things.” She pauses, and then: “How long were you guys even together?”

“From—from junior year in high school to, like, a little after graduation in college,” Heejin replies.

“ _Holy shit_ , that’s a long time.”

Heejin winces. It was. “It was five years and half, but, even before that—you know—we became friends when we were just kids. I think I’ve loved her since I was twelve.” She laughs a little, but even to her it sounds sad. “I think she’s loved me as long as that too, honestly.”

“I’d say cute, because it is, but sad. Very sad.” Haseul’s words were meant to be funny, but the sympathetic look she gave Heejin was real, all too real.

“Yeah, sad.”

.

_(Heejin beats Hyunjin to the punchline a few days after their first date and first kiss—their first kiss that had quickly turned into their first make out session, mind you, because_ **_apparently_ ** _, they couldn’t keep it in their pants long enough to make it all romantic. Screw romance though, if it meant getting to shove her tongue down the girl she loved’s throat—but, there, Heejin asks Hyunjin to be her girlfriend, before Hyunjin can even think about it._

_It’s only fair after all. It’s always Hyunjin throwing her off, that she’d wanted to surprise the other girl._

_It’s quiet, and intimate. It isn’t anything big or grand—they’re just in Hyunjin’s basement, which was sort of like their den to be honest, curled up while watching The Office, and Heejin turns to face Hyunjin and when Hyunjin laughs at Michael’s fifth non-PC joke on the show, Heejin gets what Hyunjin meant all those weeks ago, when she’d confessed in the bathroom._

_She gets it, because suddenly, she can’t help herself._

_Screw romance, she thinks, this is real romance—just the two of them, Hyunjin laughing so hard she might actually die, and Heejin’s heart beating against her ribcage telling her to do it._

_“Aeongie,” she whispers._

_Hyunjin faces her and smiles at her. “Yeah?”_

_“Can we be girlfriends?” Heejin smiles back and intertwines their fingers. “I want to be your girlfriend.”_

_Hyunjin absolutely beams at her, and her eyes, they’re looking at Heejin and making her feel Hyunjin things_ **_That Make Heejin Feel A Lot More Than She Can Ever Really Describe_. ** _“Thought you’d never ask,” is all she says, but it’s a yes, and it’s a yes just for the two of them._

_Heejin leans over and kisses her. It’s not soft, or quiet. It’s not a bang either, but her toes curl, and she feels Hyunjin gasp into her mouth, and that’s enough._

_That’s romance.)_

.

“Wow, maybe you should write a play. Love really brings out the poet,” Haseul teases her.

“If I did write one, you wouldn’t be in it,” Heejin replies.

“Jesus, mean. So? Why’d you guys break up? Don’t think I ever really heard people who like, were genuinely best friends that fell in love break up so bad that you’re here being all sad about it and talking to me about _ghosts_ , so. Where’d it all go wrong?”

“Where it all went right for me, I guess.” Heejin sighs. “I had other dreams, even before Hyunjin came along. I thought I could keep both.”

Haseul furrows her eyebrows. “I thought she supported you in theatre?”

“It’s complicated,” Heejin replies, because it is. It was so much more than just New York, and the break-up. A lot of it was them wearing each other out; a lot of it was Hyunjin having no direction and dragging Heejin down with her.

“It always is,” Haseul says. “Complicated, I mean. Isn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments n kudos let me know that good things are coming so drop some below <3 hope u enjoyed this! i have other fics, so pls suggest g-idle, itzy, twice, or loona ships u want ! <3 let me know what u liked abt this chapter !


End file.
